Shrubs or small trees, erect, 0.6–2.5 m. Stem segments easily detached, whorled or subwhorled, green-gray, 4–15 × 3.5–5 cm; tubercles prominent, broadly oval, 1.5–2.5 cm; areoles subcircular to obovate, 4–7 × 3–5 mm; wool tan, aging brown to black. Spines 6–12 per areole, in all but proximalmost areoles, spreading, usually deflexed in abaxial ones, pale redbrown to dark-brown, acicular, the longest to 2 cm; sheaths pale yellowbrown, shiny. Glochids in adaxial crescent and few along margin of areole, yellow to brown, 0.5–2.5 mm. Flowers: inner tepals rose to magenta, to 20 mm; filaments yellow-green to distally tinted pink to magenta; anthers yellow, sometimes bearing stigma-tipped, stylelike appendages; style greenish yellow to often pink distally; stigma lobes yellow to white. Fruits usually sterile, often proliferating into short erect chains of 2–5 fruits, green, broadly ovoid to top-shaped, 21–25 (–35) × 20–32 mm, fleshy, smooth to shallowly tuberculate, spineless; umbilicus broadly shallow, 5–7 mm deep; areoles (20–) 25–35. Seeds rare, globose; girdle smooth. 2n = 22, usually 33.

Phenology: Flowering spring (Apr–Jul).
Habitat: Ocean bluffs, inland coastal sage flats, hills
Elevation: 0–300 m

Distribution

• Generated Map
• Legacy Map

Calif., Mexico (Baja California)

Discussion

Cylindropuntia prolifera is of hybrid origin; it occupies a habitat different from its putative parents, C. alcahes (F. A. C. Weber) F. M. Knuth and C. cholla (F. A. C. Weber) F. M. Knuth, two Mexican species.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

None.